Still Writing … It’s Not Too Late
by Amanda Sammons
Authors should begin thinking about promoting their book the day they sit
down to write it. Considering your promotional options after the book has
gone to press is too late. If you are still working on your manuscript, here
are five tips from our media room to help you on your journey:
1. Have an audience in mind from the beginning. Imagine someone
reading your book (someone NOT related to you) and think of reasons they
would seek out your title on bookshelves as opposed to the competition.
2. Include a table of contents. This is especially important if
your book is non-fiction. Chapters allow media outlets to quickly reference
appropriate sections that might apply during an interview. If each chapter
stands alone, it helps producers and editors glean important nuggets of
information without doing much more than a quick skim, which is all the time they
have.
3. Become part of a bigger issue. Fiction authors who are
associated with a non-profit group or other types of organizations will have
credibility over authors who are not part of a bigger picture.
4. Look through the newspaper and count how often an author is quoted
or used as a source. From that, determine how often you might have been
appropriate and how many times other books in your genre could have been
used almost interchangeably. Be honest with yourself, do your writing and
credentials provide something unique to media outlets that your competition
has overlooked? If not, it is not too late to differentiate yourself and
your book.
5. Become a news junkie. You are more likely to be used as a
source if you know what the media is talking about. Even a book about
something as straightforward as animals will have the potential to be used
on more media outlets than Animal Planet.
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